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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27268198">Brackenpaw’s Mentor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Clem/pseuds/Queen_Clem'>Queen_Clem</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Warrior Cats - Fandom, Warriors - Erin Hunter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brackenpaw is abandoned baby, Cloudkit is also abandoned baby, Ow it hurts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:29:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,626</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27268198</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Clem/pseuds/Queen_Clem</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I write an AU called “A small flame” and within it, Firepool has now left with Tigerclaw.</p><p>This is a miniseries of shorts about the cats she left behind and how they reacted to her decision, starting with her apprentice, Brackenpaw.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Brackenpaw’s Mentor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brackenpaw stared for a long time, numb to the outrage of the cats around him as Firepool, so small and frail, padded to stand at Tigerclaws side.</p><p>The former deputy dwarfed her, casting a long shadow onto her small form. Brackenpaw had the urge to step forward and scoop her up, away from him, where she would be safe.</p><p>But even he, young as he was, could see something now...off about the medicine cat.</p><p>It was almost as if she shed a skin as she walked to Tigerclaws side. Her head rose high and her eye shined with a challenge, daring any cat to speak up against her.</p><p>And they did. Yowls were thrown her way, of surprise and rage, of betrayal and pleading, but she seemed deaf to them all.</p><p>Bluestar spoke but the words were muddled in his ears, making no sense to the bewildered tom.</p><p>It was only when she spoke that he could hear once more.</p><p>Firepool glared up at the leader, “You’ve made many mistakes regarding my life Bluestar, all of you have.” She spat, looking around at the clan, “I never wanted to be a healer. With Tigerclaw I can be what I wish to be.”</p><p>The clan went deadly silent at that.</p><p>Brackenpaw felt his chest grow tight with dread. Firepool had never wanted to be a medicine cat, that he knew.</p><p>He’d been born after her ceremony but word of her resentment had never quite left camp.</p><p>He didn’t understand.</p><p>Being a medicine cat, it was so rewarding. Cats lived with his help, kits were born into his paws, wounds sealed themselves shut with the herbs he mixed. How could she hate it?</p><p>How could she hate it so much she was willing to leave with this murderer?</p><p>A bolt of fear struck through him suddenly. Without Firepool, he would be the clans only medicine cat. Not only that, but if she left with him, no one could protect her!</p><p>“Firepool, don’t go!” Brackenpaw came up to her, “He’s a tratior, he’ll kill you!” </p><p>For a moment, just a heartbeat, he could swear regret was plain to see in her eye. She blinked at him with an irrating calmness, as if she knew best. As if she knew everything would work out.</p><p>“He won’t harm me.” She mewed comfortingly, “Listen Brackenpaw, Yellowfang will teach you all you need to know.  Don’t question her, be good. Make me proud, okay?”</p><p>He watched her, even as she looked away. Around him, questions were shouted and friends screeched for her stay. But she said nothing to them.</p><p>A flash of white crashed against her and Brackenpaw could hardly breathe as Cloudkit mewed at her.</p><p>At nearly three moons old, the kit was the same size as his mother figure but he had none of the wisdom she carried.</p><p>He gazed at her with watery, confused eyes, mewing something that Brackenpaw forced himself not to hear.</p><p>When he looked back, Firepool was rubbing her cheek against her sons in farewell. Then she looked to Tigerclaw and, side by side, the two padded out of camp together.</p><p>Brackenpaw watched until her tail tip vanished, his belly as hollow as a streambed after a drought.</p><p>Yellowfang led him into the medicine cat den but he felt as if his paws were floating away from him. </p><p>He sat in the empty den, alone, and felt a sob bubble in his chest as he looked towards the small nest his mentor had slept in.</p><p>Graystripe had been a terrible mentor to him. He still remembered the endless days he’d sat alone, waiting for some task to do, aware of the stares of his clanmates burning into his pelt.</p><p>But, he also remembered the day he’d first been approached by Firepool.</p><p>
  <em>He sat outside the apprentices den, absently munching on the scrawny leg of a squirrel.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Graystripe had said he would return for him at sun-high for battle training, but the sun was slowly slipping downwards and his mentor was nowhere in sight.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>”Shouldn’t you be out doing something?” A voice spoke his thoughts from beside him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Brackenpaw looked up, blinking in shock as he caught sight of the Thunderclan medicine cat, Firepool. She was making her way towards him slowly, her gait awkward and uneven due to the reinforced claws on her paws.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her claws and fangs were not the only off thing about her. She had always been a bit of an oddity among the cats of their clan. No one knew why, but the molly had grown very slowly. By the time she reached adulthood, she stood only as tall and wide as a three moon old kit.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That never humbled her though. Brackenpaw had been incredibly young but he still faintly remembered the day he and his siblings had trambled her, then Firepaws, herbs.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She’d flailed them verbally then went on to attack even Speckletail, the head nursery queen. Beyond that though, Brackenpaw had never really associated with the aloof she-cat.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>”Graystripe said he’d take me battle training at sunhigh.” He mewed shyly, burying the bones of his squirrel leg quietly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Firepool looked away from him and up at the sky, her face growing rather displeased when she saw how far past sunhigh it was.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She looked back at him but he didn’t meet her gaze. It was so embarrassing when cats took notice of how much he simply hung around camp. It wasn’t as if he wanted to be useless, he just didn’t have anything to do!</em>
</p><p><em>He noticed though, that her expression shifted some as she watched him, as if she was softening.</em>

</p><p><em>”Well,” She grunted after a moment, “If he’s going to be so late, I suppose he won’t mind me stealing you for a bit. I could use some help gathering herbs.”</em>

</p><p><em>Brackenpaw looked up in surprise, “Really?” He asked, jumping to his paws. Excitement raced through him. Finally, he’d get to see the territory!</em>

</p><p><em>”Yes really, now hurry up.” Firepool turned, swiping her tail towards the entrance as he stumbled to follow her, “I don’t like to dilly-dally.”</em>

</p><p>She’d taken him with her every day after that. Slowly, he had learned the territory under her strict instruction and with it, the best places to find herbs.

</p><p>Firepool was many things. She had a temper, she was bitter and cold and callous, one might even say she was unavailable.

</p><p>But she was an amazing mentor.

</p><p>And she was <em>his</em> mentor and she had <em>left</em> him. She had left him to care for the clan because she wanted to chase some stupid dream she should’ve left in the nursery!

</p><p>Rage, quick and fierce, tore through his heart. With a wailing scream, Brackenpaw dug his claws into her nest, tearing at it.

</p><p>Shreds of moss, coated in her scent, flew past his face but he hardly saw them. His vision was too blurred by the mist in his eyes.

</p><p>“How could you?!” He howled to no one. No one because she wasn’t here. How could she care for the clan so little? How could she care for <em>him</em> so little?

</p><p>Sobbing, he looked down at the scattered remains of her nest and trembled. Why had she left so easily? She seemed even happy too!

</p><p>“Brackenpaw?” Blinking rapidly at the voice, the apprentice raised a paw to his eyes and cleared the mist from them. 

</p><p>Sniffling, he turned around slowly, still hiccuping. Cloudkit crouched behind him, covering a large pink shell with his body protectively.

</p><p>“It’s her favorite.”

</p><p>The kits voice was high with sadness, “We should keep it til she comes back.” He looked down at it, stroking it with a paw.

</p><p>Brackenpaws belly clenched and heaved in his body. He padded up to Cloudkit, looking down at the shell he had so carelessly tossed aside.

</p><p>Firepool had seemed to favor it. He had seen her rubbing her paw over it many nights, almost as if it was a nervous tick.

</p><p>A large chip had broken away from where it had hit the den floor in Brackenpaws tantrum.

</p><p>“She’s not coming back.”

</p><p>He didn’t mean for the words to be so cruel but for some reason, once he started, he couldn’t stop.

</p><p>“She abandoned the clan, she abandoned <em>us</em>!” He growled, holding out a paw, “Give it to me, I’m getting rid of it too!”

</p><p>He could hear the cracks in his voice.

</p><p>Cloudkit sniffled, looking up at him with enormous blue eyes, “But it’s Pooly’s.” He whispered, hugging the shell to his fluffy chest.

</p><p>Brackenpaws eyes widened. He stared down at Cloudkit. His vision slowly blurred as his eyes filled with mist again.

</p><p>The kit was hurting just as bad, if not worse than himself. Worst yet, unlike Brackenpaw, he didn’t understand why Firepool had left. He had never known she didn’t want to be a medicine cat.

</p><p>All he knew was that his mother figure had left and that he had her favorite possession. Of course he wanted to keep it safe.

</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Cloudkit.” Starclan, the apology meant so many things. Reaching foward, Brackenpaw drew Cloudkit into his bellyfur, hunching over him as if to shield him from the world.

</p><p>For a moment, the only sound in the den was Brackenpaws quiet sobs, muffled by Cloudkits fluffy kit-fur.

</p><p>Slowly though, the golden apprentice became aware of Cloudkits heaving shoulders and tiny whimpers as he joined in.

</p><p>He reached out slowly, dragging the shell towards them both and setting it between them where she should be. 

</p><p>A hollow feeling grew in his chest as the sunlight faded from the empty den and the wind carried out the last remaints of Firepools faint scent. Swallowing, he curled around Cloudkit tighter.

</p><p>She was gone but they had each other.</p>
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